Redwood City, Ca.—Speaking from his Broken Arrow ranch in northern California rocker Neil Young was pissed at all the love and attention Joni Mitchell was getting for her recent appearance at the Newport Folk Festival. This was Mitchell’s first public performance since suffering a brain aneurysm in 2015. Young was upset that his brain aneurysm and the record he made about confronting his own mortality, “Prairie Wind,” did not receive the same kind of loving embrace from the public.
It was in 2005 that Young noticed something like a small piece of broken glass in his eye. He consulted with a neurologist and it turned out to be a lifelong brain aneurysm. Left untreated the aneurysm, which is a bulge in the blood vessel would have burst at some point and Young would have had a stroke or a subarachnoid hemorrhage, both of which were life threatening. A successful surgical procedure was performed to correct the issue. Several days after the surgery Young was out walking in New York City and his femoral artery, which doctors had used to access his brain, exploded.
“There I was bleeding out on a New York City street with High Pitch Eric from the Howard Stern Show kicking at me, asking for a few bucks. But does anyone remember that?” Young asked bitterly. “Little Miss blondie sleeps around sings “Both Side Now” at Newport and the whole world is moved to tears and filled with hope and love. It’s bullshit. I made one of my best records staring down that aneurysm and nobody gave a shit.”
Young, of course, was referring to “Prairie Wind,” which features deeply philosophical tunes like “When God Made Me,” “Here For You” and the hauntingly beautiful, “It’s A Dream.” He also complained about having to give up marijuana after the surgery. “I’m never going to be able to fill the world with hope and love without my smokey smoke,” he said despondently.
Asked to respond Mitchell said, “Neil Young is a great artist if you’re into that scowling political activism kind of stuff that lasts for a minute or two. He should have really tried to win people over by going blond and having a big electric smile and high cheekbones. You hook them with your looks and and then rip their hearts out with your vulnerability, intelligence and fearlessness. But I’m just a seventy-eight year old lady recovering from an aneurysm who stopped the world at Newport by singing some of my old songs. What do I know? Neil Young can do what he wants.”
To work off his anger Young and wife, activist Daryl Hannah are at home searching for a new environmental cause for which to advocate.
